Police: Child, 3, left to wander in the cold

Libor Jany

Updated 9:59 am, Tuesday, February 26, 2013

DANBURY -- A 35-year-old woman was arrested Sunday after her 3-year-old child, left home alone while she attended a party, wandered outside in near-freezing temperatures, wearing only a "light sweatshirt," police said.

Officers were called around midnight to a house on Town Hill Avenue after a neighbor spotted the child "pacing back and forth, knocking on the door," police spokesman Lt. Christian Carroccio said. The temperature at the time hovered around 32 degrees.

Carroccio said the mother, Monica Panora, of Meriden, told police she left the child in the care of the child's uncle so she could go to a party. But the uncle apparently refused to watch the child, and both he and the woman wound up at the same party.

"She told him that (the child) could be left sleeping home alone," Carroccio said. The mother returned home about 15 minutes after police arrived.

Panora and the uncle, who police identified as 36-year-old Rafael Freire-Recuenco, of Danbury, were arrested and charged with risk of injury to a minor, Carroccio said.

Panora and Freire-Recuenco were released on a written promise to appear Monday in state Superior Court in Danbury.

A spokesman for the Department of Children & Families said Monday he could not comment specifically on the case, but he said the agency examines every reported case involving child abuse.

Several calls to a number listed for Panora went unanswered Monday, and several attempts to reach Freire-Recuenco by telephone at his home were also unsuccessful.